


Years

by Nevcolleil



Series: The Winchester Wyndham-Pryce Family Business [1]
Category: Angel: the Series, Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 15:43:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13573707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: The first few years after Wesley dove through the portal, baby Connor tucked under his arm, were easily the hardest of his life.





	Years

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this drabble for a crossovers_100 challenge on Livejournal many a year ago! I'm posting it here now for safe keeping.

The first few years after he dove through the portal, with Connor tucked in his arms, were easily the hardest. It took some time to come to terms with the fact that there was no going back. He looked for a way, of course; searched through text after text - visited one warlock after shaman after another. 

Eventually, other concerns eclipsed that of whether or not they would ever get home. 

Whether or not they would ever have a home, in this dimension if not the proper one, for example. Whether or not he was slighting Connor by paying so much attention to _where_ the boy was raised, and less attention to how.

The answer to that question, Wesley decided, was regrettably a “ _yes_ ”.

So he stopped looking.

He bought a small home in a small town, and even attempted to live there. He took jobs at libraries and book shops and, once, a university that - for whatever reason - didn’t look too closely at his unverifiable credentials. 

He didn’t give up his old life completely. He couldn’t. No matter how it twisted in him, the sight of Connor smiling at him from the booster in the back seat, while they were on their way to a camp site where Wesley would battle a violent hydra-demon. 

Wes was just as skilled as he ever was in killing those sorts of creatures. And this dimension, sadly, was just as infested with the darkness that infested his own. And there didn’t seem to be anyone else around to deal with the problem. 

Or so Wesley thought. Until a night in August, the year Connor turned four.

They were in Boston. Wesley had gotten word of a skinwalker that was prowling the area. It was sloppy work. He hadn’t heard anything about there being _two_ skinwalkers, but that didn’t mean anything. He’d have known there was two if he’d really looked at the police reports; the dispersement of attacks, the times in which each attack occurred.

He was preoccupied. Connor was a lively four-year-old - to make a gross understatement. He had never been so difficult to contain, or as challenging to protect in the midst of a hunt. He was unusually aware and intuitive, Wesley was sure, for a toddler. He spoke in full sentences, and ever other sentence out of his mouth was a question. 

“Why do Ken walkers look like that?”

Wesley sighed, slipping through the driver’s side door. Connor was already sitting beside him on the seat, buckled in. As if he hadn’t a clue that he was really supposed to be sitting in his booster seat in the back.

“That’s actually quite a long explanation, Connor. Shouldn’t you be si-”

“Can Ken walkers make people into Ken walkers by biting them like werewolfs do?”

“Skinwalkers. And no, they can’t. They don’t bite like were _wolves_. They like to claw their victims, and they aren‘t infectious. We’ve already discussed that, remember, Connor?” Connor often forgot Wesley’s discussions on the nature of the beast they would be hunting for an evening. Wesley couldn’t decide if it was because the boy hadn’t been listening to him while he talked, or if Connor simply liked to zone out while Wesley was speaking so that he’d have a reason to have Wesley lecture to him again. Connor seemed to like the sound of Wesley’s voice. It had calmed him at times when he was an infant when Wesley couldn’t think of another thing to do to quiet his crying. “We’ll speak of it again tomorrow. But for now, we’d best be heading back to the-”

“I can still smell the Ken walker. He was stinky.”

Wesley couldn’t help but smile. He closed his door and ruffled Connor’s hair before reaching for his keys. “I’ll take your word for th-”

And then they heard the scream.

Wesley tensed, hand moving smoothly from the Toyota’s ignition to the shotgun lying on the floorboard as though it had been heading in that direction from the beginning. 

“Connor. When I step out, you lock the doors. Get on the floorboard and stay there until I get back.”

“But-”

“Connor.”

Wesley looked into the boy’s eyes. Connor nodded.

Wesley spared only the time necessary to unbuckle Connor’s seat belt for him, lean over, and plant a quick kiss on Connor’s forehead. He squeezed Connor’s shoulder.

“I will come straight back here. Don’t open the doors until I do.”

“I won’t.”

“Connor-”

“I won’t, Daddy.” Wesley blinked at the term. Connor had heard it from a program and had been trying it out, at unlikely intervals, ever since. Wesley hadn’t yet decided how to address the issue. And now was not the time. 

Wesley waited outside the car to see that Connor had indeed locked the doors and hid himself as Wesley had instructed. Then he raced down the alley they were parked in, towards the direction the scream had come from. He was barely ten steps from the car when he heard another.

Wesley pumped his shotgun and rounded the corner. The second skinwalker was just on the other side of the building the first one had been in. Wesley castigated himself as he ran. A quick trip around the perimeter would have revealed this skinwalker to him. And because he hadn’t been thinking, because he’d been negligent, the child he’d heard screaming might already be about to-

Wesley brought the shotgun to bear as the skinwalker came into sight. A boy of seven was backed against the brick wall the skinwalker was nearing. Wesley skidded to a stop to take aim. The boy was just within reach of the skinwalker’s deadly claws, and it was already raising one arm. Wesley had its head in his sights and-

The skinwalker’s skull abruptly exploded. The creature’s body slumped to the ground with a dull thud, and Wesley hadn’t ever pulled the trigger.

It was only when the boy huddled against the brick wall, wide-eyed but _smiling_ , looked to his right, that Wesley saw the other person standing in the alley with them. 

A tall, thin blonde in jeans and a heavy sweater was leaning against the alley’s dumpster. She held a shotgun of her own in her small hands. Half her hair was up in a ponytail; half fell about her face in messy waves. She let out a deep breath, dislodging a strand of hair that had fallen across her eyes. 

“That was close, Mom!” the little boy yelled. He was no longer smiling. He was grinning. And practically bouncing on his feet. “Did you see how close his claws were? A moment more and he would have _gutted_ me.” He said the word as though he’d only just learned it, and was thrilled to have found the appropriate opportunity to try it out.

The boy’s mother shuddered, once, violently. Wesley feared for a moment that she would fall down. But her voice was strong and clear, and her steps steady, as she approached her son. 

“Yes, I saw. And if I ever see you run off like that again, I’m going to leave you back at the hotel when we go hunting. Never do that to me again, Dean. Do you hear me? _Never again_!”

The woman stopped at Dean’s side, hands gripping the boy’s shoulder, still holding the shotgun - by the barrel - in one of them. 

Dean seemed unaffected by his mother’s shaky tone. “I knew you could get him. I could’ve got him if you’d let me have a gun.”

This sounded like an argument mother and son had had many times. And Wesley felt like he was intruding at that moment. Fascinated as he was by the whole situation, he almost considered turning without having made his presence known to the other living occupants of the alley. 

Then Connor appeared at Wesley’s side. And took the decision from him.

“My Dad would’ve got him if you hadn’t. He got the other one in the building, didn’t you, Daddy?”

Wesley looked down at Connor looking up at him. Then he looked at the mother and son now looking back at him from the other end of the alley, the now headless skinwalker lying between the two families. 

“Um… Yes.” Wesley smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring fashion. Dean’s mother had stepped protectively in front of him, her boy peaking at Wesley and Connor from around the curve of her hip. “Would you… like some help? Cleaning up here.”

Wesley had already lowered his gun. He set it down, propped up against his leg, and gestured at the skinwalker. 

The woman blinked. Then glanced down at her own gun, as if she hadn’t realized she still held it. She lowered it quickly, putting it behind her and looking between Wesley and Connor, disbelieving and apologetic alternatively. 

“I-” She blinked again. Then recovered herself somewhat. “Yes. Thank you.”

 

All my Supernatural crossovers can be found/will be found [here](http://www.livejournal.com/users/nevcolleil/85251.html#cutid1).


End file.
